Saturday, March 22, 2008

Salt & Horseradish Crusted Beets

I have to say I was fascinated by this recipe from the Feb. 2008 Bon Appetite magazine for Salt-Crusted Beets. I couldn't quite imagine how they would taste. As I had a number of beets in my fridge looking for a cool new beet recipe, tonight I planned ahead and roasted my beets in a crust of kosher salt and prepared horseradish. I skipped the grated orange peel, but used fresh lemon thyme.

They looked so pretty and snow-covered before I put them in the oven to roast for 1 3/4 hours:

Not so pretty after:

The salt-horseradish-thyme combination creates a crust around the beets that can be cracked open like an egg shell (Happy Easter!):

Here's the pretty result:

The amazing thing was how the beets tasted. I peeled the beets and ate them straight up (skipping the creme fraiche topping) and they were absolutely superb. No hint of bitterness and perfectly salted with a light horseradish taste. Wow! If you like beets, you've really gotta try this!